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The chimerae
to begin with, are all beautiful, their sleek flanks
of hurricane, their personification of cloud,
a blue sliver of cat eye, in temples of oak leaf,
with lips of echo or purring lion throat, kisses
of dragon flame or silibant peaches, cunts of sea
snails in involutions of mother of pearl, milk
and honey nipples in each pore, nails of the moon
sparking on the hard stone, the smile they smile
upon this passing head alone, the glances of fire
upon that hand that hand that throat, glances
of light given to the sweet and salty tears
of the sea, sandpaper tongue, licking
their way through the finest hair, a thicket
of cat sighs and limbs of serpentile entwining, wild
berries prickled to ripeness by the falling
lip of fingerprint or taste bud, once human
too, born in maternal cream, wanting to be
as much as anyone else, driven by the desire
to be loved into human habitations, instead caught
like images of unrepentent injury in the net
of another’s eye, changed into voiceless replications,
raptors of the banquet table, banished to cobweb
and spider’s bite, leaving a kiss shyly upon
that ankle that kicks free of its heavy slumber,
its exhausted dreams thrashing limbs into
open air, a knot sleepwalking in the fetal
brain, until you wake, while looking in
a mirror, to see you have given birth to
the chimera that you are, the lovely, the lively
locked, decomposing the self into some more
tangential music
Copyright © 2004 REbecca Seiferle.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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On the Island of Bones
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